Marine Corps Base Quantico -- Sports are a significant part of the high-school experience — even, and maybe especially, in a school as small as Quantico Middle/High School (QMHS).
Past QMHS athletes are now being honored by a new Athletic Hall of Fame, which inducted its first six members in October. The undefeated 1948 varsity boys basketball team, longtime Football Coach and Athletic Director Gene Leonard, and four players with noteworthy achievements in football and baseball, were chosen out of 34 nominations.
“We have a culture of high expectations here,” said Michael Johnson, QMHS principal. “That’s shown through our outstanding athletics program.”
Photos of the Hall of Fame members will be shown in a display in the school’s new gym where they can inspire current and future student athletes.
Leonard was head football coach for 31 years and athletic director for 10 years before retiring from QMHS in 1991. He coached two undefeated teams.
The four former QMHS students who were inducted are Kevin Kelly (attended 1963-65), Larry Walt (class of 1965), Daniel Morris (class of 1973) and Jamie Mackenzie (1971). At 110 pounds, Kelly played the position of halfback on the football team for three years. Volunteer Assistant Coach Ed Heuring told Head Coach Leonard, “I’ve never seen a tougher player for his size in all my years.” Kelly died from cancer at the age of 22 and is remembered by Leonard as “a young man who has been such an inspiration to all the lives he touched.”
Walt was the varsity football team quarterback from 1962-64, his sophomore and junior years. He also played basketball and baseball. He played college football for Wake Forest University and then served in the Marine Corps as a helicopter pilot.
Walt said playing sports at QMHS was a great experience, mainly because of the coaches.
“They were all outstanding individuals,” he said. “Coach Leonard is still like a second father to me.”
He can easily call up his favorite QMHS sports memory — a football game against Maryland’s Bullis School that took place in pouring rain.
“They’d called off all the other games in Northern Virginia,” Walt said. “Bullis wanted to call off our game, but Coach Leonard said ‘no, we’re going to play.’”
There was a foot of water in the end zone, Walt remembered. But Coach Leonard brought extra uniforms for his team and at half-time they changed into dry clothes. Walt said he threw four touchdown passes and QMHS won the game 28-0.
He said all his coaches at QMHS worked hard to instill a sense of camaraderie in their players. That’s a feeling Walt has carried with him his whole life.
Morris played baseball for four years at QMHS. He was team captain for two years and was voted Most Valued Player his senior year, 1973. He went on to letter in baseball all four years at George Mason University.
He said his favorite memory of QMHS sports was his freshman year on the varsity baseball team and how kindly the older players treated him.
“The seniors even let me, a 90-pound ninth-grader, eat lunch with them,” Morris said. “It was always a team environment.”
He credits baseball coach Barry Hall with being a leader who always believed in everyone on his team — a mentality Morris said he tries to apply to his adult jobs.
“You can be the best player or hardest worker in the world, but it takes a team environment to succeed,” Morris said.
Mackenzie attended QMHS for three years and played football — the team was undefeated his junior year — as well as baseball and swimming. He was a record-breaking swimmer and later coached swimming at Centreville High School in northern Virginia.
Mackenzie said his favorite memories of QMHS are its cozy size and the outstanding teachers and coaches he had there.
He said he would encourage current QMHS students to “just do as much as you can while you’re there.”
“I remember playing my last game my senior year and it just dawned on me that it was over,” Mackenzie said. “It goes fast.”
“We are proud to honor these outstanding inductees,” Principal Johnson said. “They have made a tremendous impact and will become part of our school history.
Go Warriors!”
— Writer: auphausconner@quanticosentryonline.com